Hi, this is likely a common question, but none of the threads I searched really had answers to my specific situation. I think I am better off buying a used TLB than leasing equipment for what I am about to undertake. I have 5 acres that will need several large heavy bits of debris removed. It will need the drain tiles and one foundation wall of a dwelling exposed. It will need footers dug for a garage. It will likely need city water and sewer trenched in 800 feet from the road. the dwelling will be gutted and rebuilt. I want to expand an existing pond by about 1/2 acre, and dredge some of the ditch feeding the pond. No, it is not a wetlands. Being by nature an arrogant jerk, I plan to do this myself piecemeal over the next 5 years - on and off. Drain tiles here, garage there, as budget and discretionary time allow. This may not be entirely realistic, but to even try the work on the new property myself I think I need a TLB. In my area 15 year old used are about 15K, new CUTs with small hoes are about 15k, and 30-40-50 year olds (Case 300s, Ford 4500s) are about 4-7k, running. This seems about right - I don't need machine reliability to support my income-(I am a doctor). If the thing breaks and it takes weeks to fix, no biggie. If I am in the middle of a job, I can rent for a day or two to at least get the job done. I am reasonably handy with mechanical things- woodworker, rebuilt a 4cylinder fuel-injected car engine and drove the car afterwards, replaced the transaxle on another car, had the bed off my pickup last month to trace a rusted-through brake line which I replaced, but have no machining or welding capabilities of my own- have to job all that stuff out. I can get a good rate from a skilled machinist pretty easily but not with reliable delivery times (as in, he does the real customers first). Never worked on hydraulics myself unless brakes count, and I've done every wrong thing to a braking system one can imagine and I am not yet dead. I plan to look at an unpretty 4500 this weekend reportedly in light use on a farm, but all systems working perfectly. -is there a more appropriate TLB than the 4500 for what I described AND my skills? - when I look at it (diesel) what are the top 5 things to inspect to discover occult damage or incipient failure? Top 10 things? - am I totally nuts to take on a piece of equipment like this for what is essentially a hobby - working on my own house-to-be? thanks in advance. I have seen really detailed answers to questions in this forum, and I tried to supply enough detail that you can answer my uninformed questions. best regards, Bill
Sounds like pretty sound thinking to me, heck I think thats why half the guys on here have them. I bought mine to do some side work and eventually build a house. Havent heard anything bad about Ford 4500s..I know a few guys with them, they've had them forever and wont sell them. http://syracuse.craigslist.org/grd/1485203848.html This one is near me, looks clean. As far as working on them, Its not too hard on to wrench on them either, shop manuals are will come in very handy. Diesels, Something to try is to see how they start cold. Be wary if its already warm when you get there to look at it. My 555 only has the big heater coil in the intake and its not hooked up, but it starts at 40F no problems. Check oil, make sure its not milky. I'm sure others will chime in, I'm gettin tired. -Mike
Thank you, Mike! looking forward to what the other experts have to say- the title of the thread my not have attracted interest, but I cannot seem to edit it.
whf4, I am by no means an expert,but I can give you my thoughts about your questions. As I read your thread I think you answered a lot of your own questions in regards to the repair and maintenance of any machine you would purchase. In regards to the pond; expanding it with a T/L/B of any kind is going to take a lot of hours. Every time you make a windrow of material you will have to stop excavating and remove the windrow. Will the 4500 have the capability to dig deep enough ? The pond should be dewatered if it is practical because you will generate a lot of wet material if you don't. It is really frustrating to operate T/L/B in wet conditions. In regards to the condition of any machine you look at be sure to actually operate it . That is when you can check for driveline and engine noises, the operation of the brakes. Be sure and check all the pins and bushings especially the upper and lower swing tower bushings. While running it, extend the backhoe completely then raise and lower it to see how strong it is. That will give you a good idea as to the condition of the hydraulic system. Good Luck !
It might be best if you had someone knowledgeable on equipment repair go with you, if you find a machine you are serious about. Even an owner/operator, well experienced in older backhoes, can help evaluate a machine for you. Make sure you can work a machine by digging and moving material, and be weary of a machine where you cannot. Often the cheaper hoes are not the best deal. I would suggest you stay over the $10K price range, if you can afford it, and try for a Case 580C, D or E. The older less popular machines have few aftermarket and used parts available, which affects the repair cost and the resale value also. A backhoe has a lot of moving parts, many areas for problems. In my opinion 95% of the time when a private individual sells a machine, he knows he doesn't want to fix everything that's wrong with it. Phil
I am with Phil on this. I would stay away from the really old machines. If you get a deal and pay $7K for a machine, and then you have to pay another $5K fixing things that are worn out, you suddenly have $12K in a machine that is still worth only $7K or less. The other thing is that the really old ones in my experience tended to be built basically as a farm tractor with a hoe strapped on, and that they are not up to hard use. I know you say you are not using it hard, but with a lack of experience, it is not always the case. You also have a harder time finding parts for the really old stuff. It don't matter if it is cheap when a specialized part breaks and you can't find a replacement. Some things just can't be fixed without an extraordinary amount of work. Even simple things like leaky cylinders can't be fixed if you can't buy a seal kit. If you have some time to get it done, I would suggest trying some of your local equipment auctions. Look at the machines you see for $10K to $15K in the papers, and you may be surprised to get one of these in the $5K to $10K range. just make sure you get your mechanically inclined friend to check out anything you are interested in before bidding. Look at what brand is popular in the area you live, as that is what you are likely to be able to get parts for. I like Case myself, but if I lived in an area where they were not popular, I would probably look at other options. When you get ready to dig your pond, come and ask for some detailed advice. If you haven't worked near water before, you could end up in the drink in a hurry. Simply saying "be carefull" is no help if you do not know what is needed in that situation. Good luck
If I may post a reply, I am new to this site and a new owner of '85 JD 210C extentahoe. I have read lots of posts on here and would like to say hi to Phil and evry1 else who I may be calling on one day. Bill, like you I just recently went through the idea of renting vs buying a used TLB. I struggled with the idea of buying into a money pit and it worried me alot. I have a camp that I need alot of work done on and renting/leasing a TLB is just not feasible. I found this unit local and Googled all I could about it, before going to look at it. I found a site that explained how to evaluate a used TLB and it worked very well for me. I thought of using an experienced operater/owner but no time to set up. As Phil mentioned once before, if you can try it for a day or two, its good advice. I had to realize this was an '85 with problably more then 10k hours on it (hr meter broken at 8900hrs). And it showed, leaking cylinders, hoses, loose pins etc. But, the motor was sound, no smoke at all and good starting at cold temps, hydraulics strong, brakes recently redone, easy shifting reverser and new rubber on back. I have about 50 hours on it so far no issues yet, knock on wood. Its parked for the winter, temps around here getting to cold to start and operate. The fellow I bought the b'hoe from was a heavy equipment mechanic but like Phil said some owenrs let alot of stuff go, they just keep the unit working. But, what he did have was the JD Parts, Operator, Repair Manuals, which have been very valuable learning about my machine. I am feeling I did ok buying this unit and proud to say a John Deere owner, never thought I would see the day of owning a b'hoe or even a JD.....lol. I will post some pics once I get back out to the camp. Maybe even snap off a couple of my '51 Ferguson TEA20. Ole Betsy! After checking prices across N.America, I found I didn't pay too much ($11,500 CAN) considering my float move was only $250. If I put $3K into it and get $6-7K work out of it and sell it in better shape then I when I bought it I maybe get $8k then I haven't done too badly. Hope I haven't broken any site rules by posting and if I can add Bill just do lots of research on whatever TLB you decide on. Good Luck, Paul
I was in the exact same position two years ago.I needed to clear 2 acres on the lake and rock 500 feet of shoreline.I knew nothing about backhoes and was scared to death that I might buy a " Money Pit". I was afraid of auctions and wanted to buy from an individual that I felt might not lie to me. I watched eBay for a couple of months until I found a New Holland LB75B only 18 months old with 240 hours for sale by a farmer. It was about 130 miles away so I emailed and asked to come and look at it. He had all the paperwork where he bought it new for 52,500. I bought it for $32,000. Probably a little more than you want to spend and was more than I wanted to spend, but I have used it for over two years now without spending a dime on repairs, and the property really looks good. Everything is tight on a new model making them easier for a beginner to learn on. I am acually surprised how good I am getting with it. If I were starting over I would look for a Late model low hour plain jane machine. Heavy equipment is very expensive to work on. I would think in todays economy if you are willing to accept something other than Cat, Case , or Deere you might find a good late model low hour machine for around $25,000.
Welcome aboard spyder, thank you for a very informative and encouraging thread. Dont worry, you done GOOD. :yup :thumbsup
Hi, thank you all for your input- a range of opinions. I see the point - spend 5k twice and you're at ten. Why not spend 10 and get a better machine? Probably - doctor or no doctor - 12-14k is out of reach for me, at least in one gulp. there seem to be IH 3514s, ford 4500s, and 530s for sale in the $5k range around here. Condition really variable. I'll look at some iron and ask some more questions. All the machines have been used for a long long time. Most have broken hours meters and need some plumbing. One of the nice things about renting a machine is that it puts bookends around a job- you've got a hard start and you've got the meter running in front of you, and you gotta give it back. Focuses you some. I seemed to scare up some ?s when I said "pond". I have a little wet spot in the yard with a trickle creek going into it and out of it. I was going to lower the soil level around it by about 18" to widen it out, and do it in late august when the darn thing is pretty dry. I have *no* plans of floating iron. this has been really helpful. Maybe I'll stay outa trouble. Bill
Just so you don't feel bad about passing up a 4500, I thought I'd finally found one that was in my price range and turns out the entire steering system is shot. Hey the engine sounded great and the hydraulics seemed to work OK. I found when I removed the radiator sheild with a buddies fork lift, because it weighs 200 plus, that the radiator is completely plugged with old oil and dirt. The radiator mounting frame is broken. The steering cylinder rod is broken and the king pins and bushings are toast. The old ag designed linkage is straight out of the 30's. Not for industrial use unless you can work on it your self. I've got a lot of patience but this old gal is going to use up every bit I have. I think I can get the cylinder rebuilt here in Dallas as well as the power steering pump. I found that Messicks up in Pa. still has this old gal in their on line parts data base so I now have 300 plus pages of parts blow ups and price lists. Nothing but the cotter pins are cheap. Oh well now I can stop obsessing about getting a TLB and just fix this one. I paid $4700 and should have given only about $3000 for this one with the steering problem. Live and learn learn learn. Now if the transmission will hold together for about 100 hours more I can get my ditch dug. One other thing I will say is probably with regular maintanance and proper greasing this thing would have lasted a lot longer without showing so much wear, but I guess thats why I got it. John
She's a beautiful thing, John. I remember installing the rad guard on a 4500 I had, after a motor rebuild, it was not user friendly. Seems to me that's where the hydraulic oil reservoir was, and there was something difficult about installing the oil lines, as I recall. Of all the backhoes I've ever had, I enjoyed driving that one the most. Good luck with her, Phil
just bought a 4500 2 weeks ago,was working great but just like a switch turned off my hyd front and rear quick working,im not a mech and with acouple of checks the front mt pump still seems to be working,lots of hyd fluid going back to resv and cracked a couple of lines at back of pump and they have oil leaking when loose
Follow up on earlier post 4500 steering rebuild I am just now getting the front end back together. I put the repainted rims on today before it hit 100. Yesterday, Memorial day I finally got the radiator shroud back on with the help of my sweet wife who lowered as I guided the heavy bugger back down. Here are a few pics of the endeavor. A couple of things to note. My hydraulic pump was bad so I had to get a replacement which ended up being 1/4 inch shorter which put the hi pressure output line in contact with the front casting which then required some grinding. I also added three ½ inch shims underneath the pump bracket so the driveshaft to the pump would clear the casting underneath. I also had to grind clearance in the front right corner of the front casting for the fittings on the rebuilt power assist cylinder. I guess I lost 1/2 an inch in length on the welded piston rod. The driveshaft from the front engine pulley to the hydraulic pump got 2 new ujoints and I had to weld up the rear yoke because the previous owners had run it with 2 bad ujoints until it had rubbed most the way thru. There is a picture of the left side nut holding the radiator in place. The book says it is a 3/8 nut. It is in fact a 3/8 bolt which then takes an 11/16 nut and wrench. Hard to tell when you can't see anything and it's covered in an inch of grime. I also found that you leave the bolts and rubber mounts out while you position the radiator, then once it’s in place with the fan shroud etc in place the you can lift one side then the other and insert the carriage bolts and bumpers into the blind slots one at a time. The center steering arm got new bushings and a new pin, which I lucked out finding from a former Ford tractor dealer in Nebraska who responded to a parts search on Tractorhouse. I had previously purchased a new after market pin from our favorite agricultural and industrial parts supplier, which did not have the notch in it for the cotter bolt. It was also much softer than the original so I let them have it back after they declined to provide me with a satisfactory usable replacement. My philosophy on these repairs is if I have to take it apart now anyway then I may as well replace anything, which is or could be going bad, because it is so much work to fix anything in the front end of this machine. The tie rod ends were OK but the rubber boots were bad so I had to order them from Ford/ New Holland because I couldn’t find anything like them aftermarket. They were the first thing to go back in the hole after the center arm got it’s new pin and bushings. The radiator couldn’t go in until the tie rod ends were torqued because they are inaccessible with the shroud and radiator in place. Ditto for the power assist cylinder rear pivot bolt. The front power assist cylinder pivot bolt/ pin which is threaded up from underneath the front right corner of the casting. Mine had been stripped out at some earlier time and then left cross threaded for me to try to get out. This required fabricating an adaptor to go over the 2 flat sides of the bolt and also fit inside a 1 1//2” ¾ drive socket. Then energy was applied in bursts interspersed with panting and a lot of cold water for me, with a 10 foot cheater pipe and a miraculously unbroken Craftsman breaker bar. I hope Sears isn’t reading this. Once I got it out, I managed to retap the remaining threads in the casting so the bolt would go back in. The bolt/pin is very hard. Much harder than the casting. I don’t know how they managed to bust off most of the threads on my bolt. A new one from New Holland if they could find one showed to be 130 plus bucks. To keep the damaged pin/bolt secure, I then drilled and tapped 2 half inch holes in the casting to intersect the 1 inch pin hole into which I screwed 2 grade 8 Allen head set screws each well lubricated with JB Weld to act as keepers for the damaged bolt/pin. This was after I spent quite some time getting the cylinder to line up without binding on the pin. Originally I guess the thought was that the pin could be adjusted up or down to perfectly align the cylinder but mine wasn’t so lucky and I had to use a stack of washers. Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to get the last hoses into place and refilled the hydraulic system with oil. Maybe someday I’ll be able to get the Loader backhoe frame sand blasted and painted. I’m about out of time on this project now. It needs to go to work.
Hey John, I agree with you, if you are taking it apart, might as well fix what needs or is going to need to be fixed. I noticed in the photos the engine is painted as well. Did you pull it and do a rebuild? If so what was involved with that & what did it cost? Thanks, JWD
It's just amazing how much difference a new paint job makes. I look at the old, rusty, parts, then the new stuff, looks like a new unit.
I wouldn't have painted the radiator core with a heavily pigmented paint. It will inhibit the heat transfer. That is why radiator repair shops use a black paint with very little pigment in it.
Follow up: When I was a kid on the farm we always joked that even if we couldn't fix it, it always worked better after a paint job. Another thing is it's so much easier to work on something when it's clean and painted. Remarkably the engine on this one ran pretty well when I got it so after pulling off the radiator, power steering pump, generator, battery, battery tray, and fuel filters etc to rebuild, I cleaned what was left up and shot paint. I have been using an automotive enamel which sticks good to anything and doesn't clog the radiator. After cleaning out about 20 pounds of dirt and oil from the fins it's got to run cooler now.
Nice job how is it preforming after all that work??
How it works? Like a hose. And I rebushed and repinned all the loader and backhoe control levers so I don't have 4 inches of slop in my controls. One thing I learned on this one was, even if they don't look worn, when there are 4 clevis pins between the control lever and the valve, a little wear on each one adds up. I only had to go oversize on one pin going to the boom valve. All the others responded to new standard size pins and some got the holes brazed shut and redrilled. I made new pivot shafts for the backhoe control levers to pivot on and got OILITE bushings to replace all the worn out plastic OEM parts. I had to pull the instrument panel/rear hood, and fuel tank to get to the bad steering gear. While apart it makes it a lot easier to paint the inside of the loader frame posts etc. BTW the TORQUE CONVERTER / POWER REVERSING decal is #C7NN7B292AY from New Holland. I'll include a picture. If anyone has found an aftermarket outfit with good customer service that makes decals for equipment could you make a recommendation? While I have the fuel tank off it’s getting cleaned and sealed. I am going with POR 15 US Tank sealer. It's supposed to get here Monday. To dry out the inside of the tank I have had good luck hooking a shop vac to the filler neck and letting air in at the sending unit hole. This setup made it OK to braze shut about a dozen pinhole leaks in the bottom. The tank stayed relatively cool except right where I was working on it. It can’t explode if the concentration of fumes doesn’t get high enough. In preparation for the sealer I filled it full of water with a cup of degreaser and about 2 lbs of TSP and let it soak for a couple of days in this 105 degree heat. When I poured that out prior to the Phosphate etch it looked like black coffee. I am now on the 3rd day of the phosphate-etching soak and it is starting to look halfway decent inside. I bought Klean-Strip brand etch at Homedepot cause it's 1/2 the price of OSPHO. Seems to be half as concentrated but does an OK job. I dumped a full gallon into the tank along with a handful of 1/2 inch bolts for impact. I ordered a quart of the POR 15 brand of degreaser and their etch as well. According to the MSDS for the sealer, it has some Phenols in the chemistry which need the ionic bond that their etch leaves on the surface of the steel for a good stick. I’ll use their cleaning products for the final pretreatment. According to the data on the cleaner they offer, it has Potassium Hydroxide in it instead of Sodium Hydroxide, which is common lye. It is supposed to keep stuff in suspension better than lye. Wish me luck. Somewhere on here I posted a piece about installing a drain line to the sump of the steering gearbox to get rid of water in the bottom. Speaking of water, I drilled drain holes in the loader frame and the backhoe dipstick to let out the rain/condensation water, which had accumulated there. From what I have seen here, I would guess that keeping these weldments dry inside isn't high on the MFG's list of to do items. I drained 5 gallons out of the right loader arm. And yes I did weld shut and gusset all the cracks I found. It's hard to weld when the steam pressure inside is blowing the puddle back in your face. John
You can get away with a lot as diesel is a combustible liquid, not a flammable one. It is close to impossible to get an explosion with a combustible liquid. There has been a lot of brazing done on diesel tanks with almost no prep. I don't think I would want to try the vacuum trick on a gas tank though; pulling fumes through that close to an electric motor.
Eight years later I'm still using the old thing. I have not replaced any hoses yet but they all look bad. I have a rap in the engine which I am afraid is a bad wrist pin. That will require pulling the engine because it will need a new liner pressed in. All the repairs I made have held up but I didn't go deep enough into it. The thing needs bearings in the drivetrain and maybe planetaries in the rear end. I will try and find used parts to fix it with. Had a scare with hydraulic pump. I was digging stumps and all of a sudden there was oil pouring out of the front end. It looked like a blown seal in the pump so I pulled it and put new seals in it. Didn't fix the problem. Turns out the high pressure line coming off the pump had cracked and the way it sprayed out it looked like the pump leaking. Pulled the pump again, welded the line and she goes again. I use it primarily around the yard lifting heavy stuff. The rear end makes so much noise I don't try digging with the bucket. The backhoe works great and is probably more than the tractor was designed for. I will include some pictures of different jobs it did for me. On servicing the backhoe control valves and swing cylinders, see my article on cutting out the floor plate and pulling the whole assembly straight up out of there in one piece. This did not require removing the backhoe.